Aid for steel and aluminum plants: CHF 37.4 million at stake
Published: Monday, Dec 16th 2024, 20:10
Back to Live Feed
CHF 37.4 million over four years: this is how much the state aid for strategically important steel and aluminum plants will cost all electricity consumers if the Swiss parliament finally approves this aid.
Beat Rieder, Chairman of the Council of States' Committee for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Transport (Urek-S), said this in the Council of States on Monday, referring to figures from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. This committee had discussed the matter on behalf of the Council of States.
For a household with 4,500 kilowatt hours of electricity consumption per year, this amounts to CHF 3.05 over the four years, Rieder continued. Small and medium-sized companies with relatively low electricity requirements would have to pay CHF 33.85, while those with higher electricity requirements would have to pay CHF 101.55.
Four companies are to benefit from the aid, as the Valais Council of States went on to say: Steeltec in Emmenbrücke LU, Stahl Gerlafingen in the canton of Solothurn and the aluminum foundries Constellium and Novelis in Sierre VS.
Swiss steelworks are under pressure because other countries are strongly supporting plants in these countries, as has been repeatedly stated in parliamentary debates. Constellium and Novelis were hit hard by the summer storms in the canton of Valais.
Trade unions are satisfied
The trade unions Unia, Syna, the Swiss Commercial Association and the organization "Employees Switzerland" reacted positively to the news from the federal government on Monday. The announced mass redundancies should now be "off the table", they wrote in a press release.
The reduction in grid usage costs will temporarily bring companies a significant reduction in electricity costs and give them the urgently needed time to set up their production sustainably without layoffs.
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic